Well, it’s been four years, and we’ve changed the tagline twice. A lot has changed in the Managed DNS (Domain Name System) space and our overall solution-oriented Internet Performance positioning has up-leveled, but it looks like these research firms are starting to recognize and write about how important and mission-critical this foundational and critical Internet protocol is. Enterprises are taking notice in this DNS evolution, with its enhanced productization, and how with its traffic shaping capabilities it can now provide a robust ability to monitor, control, and optimize online infrastructure.

Gartner includes Dyn in it’s hot ‘Next Generation Infrastructure Tools’ category. Analyst Bob Gill, a research director at Gartner, recently published a specific piece describing just how critical it is to have good external DNS services. Aptly titled “If External DNS Fails, So Does Your Digital Business,” Bob opens with the very basics of the DNS story and its types. What is DNS? Authoritative DNS? External DNS? Where are companies open to threats? Why is DNS so important?

This piece is a great way to continue educating enterprises about this crucial, yet often overlooked, part of their infrastructure, and paves the way to start looking at some of the deeper opportunities associated with DNS. Complete DNS failure leads to the disappearance of all externally-facing web resources. Visit from the fail whale? Check. Broken IoT? Confirmed. Part of the reason DNS is so critical is that every single thing that connects to the Internet uses DNS to get there. With naming and identity of people and machines so important to our Internet economy, DNS is the perfect connectivity and security glue.

Part of the reason we changed our tagline was that uptime is no longer a factor—it’s an expectation—for companies weighing DNS providers, but more so for their entire application. Key differentiators now focus more on availability, speed, security, and cost of the whole online infrastructure experience. How will my site perform? Will my users see latency delay? How consistent is their experience, and later, what’s the reputation of my brand? These are the key questions customers are asking when they come to Dyn, across both our Internet Intelligence and Traffic Management families of products. Help with business continuity? Cloud vendor diversity? Threat prevention against DDoS attacks? We’ve got you Mr. Enterprise.

Then Bob gets to the key question: “Should you do external DNS yourself?” [Note: we like this part because, for the most part, he answers with an emphatic NO]. He goes on to cite key reasons to source DNS externally from a managed DNS provider:

I don’t think we really need to dive much deeper into this -- if you want our take on any one of these things, just check out some of those posts on our blog over the last eight years. We’ve been saying it since day one.

We’re proud to see our space continue to evolve. We’ve hosted DNS ‘Inside Baseball’ over the years as a collaborative industry insiders event for players new and old, small and large. We believe the rising tides floats all boats. It’s cool to close out by noting that the list of representative vendors in the “DNS as a Service” space includes some very recognizable names as well; Akamai, Amazon (Route 53), Dyn, Neustar (UltraDNS), NSONE, and Verisign seem to make up the bulk of the space. Here is the market share from Datanyze of the top 1000 web properties in the world and who they use for external Managed DNS.

Source: Datanyze, October 2015

It’s great to have Gartner’s idea of the landscape on paper. Our space and our commitment to build and evolve it is getting the recognition it deserves. The introduction of real-time data and analytics to help inform your traffic management decisions is the next phase and we're happy to be leading the charge. Innovation in the DNS, and overall Internet Performance market, is real and upon us. We’ll continue to lead from out front, loud and proud, and appreciate your support.

About the Author

Kyle York is Dyn’s Chief Strategy Officer and has been a long-time executive, having joined in 2008. Over the years, he has held go-to-market leadership roles in worldwide sales, marketing, and services. In his role as CSO, Kyle focuses on overall corporate strategy, including: positioning and evangelism, new market entry, strategic alliances and partnerships, M&A, and business development. Outside of Dyn, Kyle is an angel investor, entrepreneur, and advisor in several startups. Follow Kyle on Twitter: @kyork20 and @Dyn.